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UNIX is short for what?

Hehe, it's a trick question. UNIX is not an acronym therefore does not short for anything. An early versions of UNIX was actually called UNICS and it was short for UNiplexed Information and Computing Service. Additional information about UNIX can be found on this page.

Here's a little history info. on UNIX
This information and more can be viewed here.

Year | Event

1957 - Bell Labs found they needed an operating system for their computer center which at the time was running various batch jobs. The BESYS operating system was created at Bell Labs to deal with these needs.

1965 - Bell Labs was adopting third generation computer equipment and decided to join forces with General Electric and MIT to create Multrics (Multiplexed Information and Computing Service).
1969- By April 1969, AT&T made a decision to withdraw Multrics and go with GECOS. When Multrics was withdrawn Ken Thompson and Dennis Ritchie needed to rewrite an operating system in order to play space travel on another smaller machine (a DEC PDP-7 [Programmed Data Processor 4K memory for user programs). The result was a system which a punning colleague caled UNICS (UNiplexed Information and Computing Service)--an 'emasculated Multrics'.
1969 - Summer 1969 UNIX was developed.

1971- First edition of UNIX released 11/03/1971. The first edition of the "UNIX PROGRAMMER'S MANUAL [by] K. Thompson [and] D. M. Ritchie" is also dated "November 3, 1971". It includes over 60 commands like: b (compile B program); boot (reboot system); cat (concatenate files); chdir (change working directory); chmod (change access mode); chown (change owner); cp (copy file); ls (list directory contents); mv (move or rename file); roff (run off text); wc (get word count); who (who is one the system). The main thing missing was pipes.
1972- Second edition of UNIX released 12/06/1972
1972- Ritchie rewrote B and called the new language C.
1973- UNIX had been installed on 16 sites (all within AT&T/Western Electric); it was publically unveiled at a conference in October.
1973- Third edition of UNIX released 02/xx/1973
1973- Forth edition of UNIX released 11/xx/1973
1974- Fifth edition of UNIX released 06/xx/1974
1974 -Thompson went to UC Berkeley to teach for a year, Bill Joy arrived as a new graduate student. Frustrated with ed, Joy developed a more featured editor em.
1975- Sixth edition of UNIX released 05/xx/1975
1977 -1BSD released late 1977
1978 -2BSD released mid 1978
1979 -Seventh edition of UNIX released 01/xx/1979
1979 -3BSD released late 1979
1979 -SCO founded by Doug and Larry Michels as UNIX porting and consulting company.

1990- AIX short for Advanced Interactive eXecutive was first entered into the market by IBM February 1990.
1991- Sun unveils Solaris 2 operating environment, specially tuned for symetric multiprocessing.
1991 -Linux is introduced by Linus Torvald, a student in Finland. Who post to the comp.os.minix newsgroup with the words:
Hello everybody out there using minix -

I'm doing a (free) operating system (just a hobby, won't be big and professional like gnu) for 386(486) AT clones.

Re: UNIX is short for what?

Originally posted by Remote_Access_ Hehe, it's a trick question. UNIX is not an acronym therefore does not short for anything. An early versions of UNIX was actually called UNICS and it was short for UNiplexed Information and Computing Service. Additional information about UNIX can be found on this page.

Some more information about UNICS a.k.a. UNIX :-).

Unix is a "play on words" of an older multi user time-sharing OS known as Multics. UNIX was also originally designed as a single user environment (hence "U"nix).

Nice post Remote_Access_ , the history has a lot to tell us about the future !!

Micael said
Some more information about UNICS a.k.a. UNIX :-).
Unix is a "play on words" of an older multi user time-sharing OS known as Multics. UNIX was also originally designed as a single user environment (hence "U"nix).
Nice post Remote_Access_ , the history has a lot to tell us about the future !!

I guess this is all bout the famous flaming war or maybe someone has something against newbies as the text below so nicely told me :-).

Unknown said
Remote_Access_ is not what you think. He randomly copied other peoples work and claimed it as his own. It's newbies like you that have no idea and come here and say "nice work RA that ruin it for everyone else

Since no name was added to the antipoints "unknown" gave me have I to make myself clear and post it here.

I see nothing wrong in copy and past as long as the source is stated. And what I can see in RA's post is the source clearly stated (as a link). And it happened to be a nice post since the history often are forgotten these days when all new inventions and the evolution of the computer market is so fast! In this case is my words "nice work" not for the reasearch but for bringing a lost era up to the surface !!

And I don't give a thing for the flaming war here at AO and that several people has a major war going on. I'm a newbie to this board but not in the field of security. I'm here for education and even bring some wisdom words to this board now and then, not to attend in a war !! .